Got Value Added Resellers?? Use the White Glove Treatment

Opportunity Knocks
December 16, 2012
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February 24, 2013
Tom Fedro

To be successful in the channel a technology vendor needs to provide its channel partners with not only top-notch products, they must offer the “white-glove” treatment. You may ask what that entails, exactly. As Tevye once said, “Let me tell you.”

Over the last three years our team has spent countless hours meeting with and learning about the needs of the Value Added Reseller community and what these brave technology entrepreneurs are looking for in their partners. We have observed that a successful vendor to the VARs goes far beyond product features and pricing tiers — both of which are very important, but — it really comes down to providing measurably superior pre-sale lead delivery and post-sale technical support that can be relied on when the ship is sinking — which will happen on occasion. These are the two areas where a vendor must spend its time when building its partner network.

Other key parts of a winning partner program includes

  • Joint sales calls; the VAR must view the vendor as an extension of its sales team
  • Lead distribution; 100% Channel Centric – all leads go to VARs
  • Access to sales and technical experts in a heartbeat
  • Joint marketing activities; press releases, case studies and other collateral
  • Aggressive margins with additional discounts for registered deals
  • And, of course, outstanding technical and sales product training

In addition to whats mentioned above, at my company, Paragon Software Group, we like to promote our partner’s successes as well. To that end, read a case study about our partner Argonaut Solutions and how they replaced Symantec’s Backup Exec with Paragon’s Drive Backup — great imaging software at a great price. To read the full case story, go to our Web site, www.Paragon-Downloads.com.

Good Selling!

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